As a host of the Morgan Hill Children’s Business Fair, I often get asked this question:
“My child really wants to participate but doesn’t know what to sell. Can you help?”
I always want to help as many young people as possible to get the courage to try our fair. I encourage parents to spend some time with their children and talk about their passions & interests, and based on them come up with an idea for a small business to present during the fair. Often they lack the systems, creativity, time, or guidance to come up with something interesting and meaningful to them. In the end, they choose not to participate hoping that an idea will come before the next fair.
From my own experience, I know that sitting & waiting for a good idea to show up is not the best idea.
When in doubt, learn from others.
Both of my daughters participated in several CBFs. One of them has had experience as a helper in her sister’s booth, a volunteer helping to run an informational booth during the event, and she also was a participant selling her own products. You can read her awesome article about the variety of experiences that she’s had so far.
My second daughter has been participating as a business owner since the beginning of our adventures with CBFs. She also wrote an article from her perspective.
Busy Buzzy Bots wrote a very cool article about their experience at the MHCHBF.
No Idea, no problem!
To encourage more children to participate in the fair without having to come up with a business idea, which can be stressful and hard at the beginning, the fair is also open to child volunteers.
This past fair, we had young volunteers running the info booth and selling raffle tickets to participants and visitors. They spread flyers to people in the surrounding area to help draw people to our event. These kids learned about the event firsthand and felt the excitement of the event. A few of them left saying they will be back next year with a business! I really, really hope this is so! This is what this event is all about…
The obvious motivation for organizing this event is to present an opportunity for young people to take their first steps toward launching their own businesses. Since our very first fair in 2021, I realized this is not another community event. This is education, fun, and real life all in one. This is a place where adults and kids are treated like equals and where real-life learning is happening in a challenging but fun and safe environment.
My goal moving forward is to grow the event into a youth-driven experience. I would love for the youth in our community to fulfill the majority of the roles and responsibilities such as event organization, staffing, execution, and more. I want to reach out to as many families as I can. We had great success this year with recruiting from the Morgan Hill Community, the help was amazing!
Morgan Hill Children’s Business Fair has a thorough community outreach program including FB page, Instagram, email campaigns, and website. Please follow us to stay up to date on current events and future activities.
This year, to spread the word about this concept and to help more young people get ready to participate I have an online Small Business Hub for teens coming up PLUS I have partnered with Morgan Hill Library where I’m offering a free two-hour workshop for kids and teens. We did one last year, and we will be offering one more this year on March 23rd.
This is my second time running this workshop at the Morgan Hill Library. Our first time around was really awesome and we got a great participation! The upcoming workshop is happening on March 23rd at 3 pm.
This is an in-person 2 two-hour workshop for teens where we will dig deeper into their unique skills, passions, and interests. We will explore ways to turn ideas into marketable products and services bringing extra pocket money.
If your child can’t get to the library on the 23rd, or if they are a little too young for the workshop, please visit MH Children’s Business Fair website and get on our mailing list. This way you will be informed about other upcoming events and everything in between.
Starting a small business workshop for teens. 2-hour in-person workshop in partnership with Santa Clara County Library District, May The Art Be With You, and Morgan Hill Children’s Business Fair
The workshop is hosted with the partnership of Morgan Hill Library and myself. The event is free however, pre-registration is required as space is limited. Click on the button below and it will take you to the library’s registration page.
4 Responses
My son also wants to participate in the children’s business fair. For Santa Clara fair he applied with his idea of selling his own plants but didn’t make it through. After that he lost confidence about reapplying with another idea. I think this workshop is a great idea to bring back his confidence. However, we live in Santa Clara city and on a week day Wednesday Sep 20 I’m not sure if we will be able to make it to 2hours workshop in Morgan hill but will surely try. If you plan to conduct such workshop around city of Santa Clara it will be highly appreciated.
Hi Vandana. I’m so sorry to hear you didn’t get into the fair in Santa Clara. I normally let everyone in. The only limitation we have is the space, so if we reach a certain amount of participants I need to close the registration. We also stopped approving all food booths. we let only those who go through Santa Clara Health Department and get the food seller permit.
I really hope your son can come on the 20th! However, if this workshop is a success I will probably try to do it in other libraries in the Santa Clara County, like Saratoga, Los Altos or Los Gatos, maybe even San Jose. Please visit our fair’s website (link is in the post) and sign up for our newsletter. I send out emails out when I have something going on for the kids.
Thank you so much Ewa. My son said that he wants to attend this workshop to learn more. I am happy. I will mostly try my best to bring him on 20th to the MH library.
Great!!